


Top Shelf

by SorceressSupreme



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Barista!Natasha, Getting Together, Multi, alternate universe - magical cafe in a supernatural library, baker!clint, but like I cannot stress how little angst there is in this fic, i apologize in advance the worldbuilding really got away from me, librarian!bucky, the most chill version of "getting together"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26318155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorceressSupreme/pseuds/SorceressSupreme
Summary: Clint and Natasha work in a café. When they meet the new librarian, they get drawn into a mystery where the stakes are nothing less than... a few missing library books.(aka "I attempt a cozy mystery and make it a bit too cozy")
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25
Collections: be_compromised AU Exchange 2020





	Top Shelf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/gifts).



> I feel like you're not _supposed_ to mash up a whole bunch of the AU you requests you get in an exchange but uhhhh I kinda got this idea stuck in my head and fully admit I got carried away with it.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this very weird AU fusion I created as much as I enjoyed daydreaming about it :)

Natasha rolls her eyes as Clint stumbles into yet another doorway.

"How many times do I have to tell you to drink your pot of coffee _before_ you come in?" Natasha sighs, "You scare the customers like this."

Clint's response is drowned by the pot of coffee he's pouring into his face.

"The coffee here is better," he repeats when he notices Natasha raising her eyebrow at him.

"I've given you the beans to take home!"

"Yeah… but it never turns out as nice as when you make it." he says before quickly retreating into the kitchen.

Nat rolls her eyes, hoping it will offset the blush on her cheeks.

Luckily the next person in line barely looks up from their phone to order. Normally this would irritate her, but for now she’s relieved to not have her tough barista persona crack in front of customers. Plus, it’s not like she’s going to listen to the order all that much, anyway. After her first few weeks on the job, she’s been able to… feel what a customer wants. Most of the time it’s more or less what they ask for. Maybe the drink needs some extra sugar or an extra bit of lemon. Sometimes it’s a second drink that they were craving but didn’t want to order. Every once in a while there’s a bigger shift, like the girl who came in yesterday after a break up and mindlessly ordered her usual afternoon coffee but really needed a double hot chocolate or the new intern who hadn’t realized that someone he was ordering for was allergic to milk.

Clint, on the other hand, had developed an uncanny ability to correctly eyeball any recipe after he’d finished his training with his mentor. Both incredibly handy skills considering the café is only big enough to fit two workers, at most. It wasn’t long after they discovered that their working styles were complimentary that they discovered most other parts of their life were compatible as well.

"What's the tea this morning, Natasha?"

Coulson’s voice pulls her out of her reverie. When she looks up, he's smiling at her from across the counter. The older man has been a regular here longer than she and Clint had been working in this café. Natasha sometimes thinks he knows more about running this place than they do, despite the fact he's just in every morning for his coffee (black, or with a splash of cream if it's raining) and then out again.

"I hear there's a new employee starting at the library today," she replies, deadpan.

Coulson blinks a few times, "No. Natasha. The tea _of the day_."

"Yeah, that's what I just told you." Natasha stares back at Coulson steadily as the older man's half-smirk starts to creep onto his face.

He tries to hide it behind pinching the bridge of his nose, "Not a situation report… just… what teas do you have today."

Nat grins. " _Oh!_ you should've just said so!"

Coulson sighs, but takes his black coffee and puts his usual tip in the jar.

* * *

That afternoon, Steve arrives as usual for his lunch break. Usual except for the _unusually_ hot dude who arrives with him. Like possibly too hot to be entirely human hot. Natasha has to physically move out of his line of sight to stop staring. While she's bending down to refill the coffee beans, she notices Clint having the same issue. She files that away for later.

"I think you broke him." Nat says when Steve doesn’t get a response waving his hand in Clint’s face.

"You see me every day," Steve laughs,

Which is true. The arts section librarian had started coming in every day for lunch shortly after Clint and Natasha had started working at the café, and the three had bonded over some of the straight up arcane rules they’d had to learn before being allowed in the building.

"Ah, but you brought… a friend," she ventures hopefully.

"Yeah!" Steve gestures to the dark-haired man behind him and Natasha has to look away quickly before she's captivated once again, "This is my roommate, Bucky."

"Roommate," Natasha draws out the word, narrowing her eyes at the dark-haired stranger.

Bucky is fit, to be sure, but looking at him next to Steve makes Natasha feel like she’s going to have to keep the jock from bullying her nerdy friend. Although the jock vibe is thrown off by his crisp, dark suit and chin-length hair. And the left hand that’s tucked a bit too inconspicuously into the pocket of his trousers. Natasha watches him pick up on Clint’s hearing aids and eye them, and then Clint, with interest.

His eyes cut to her, ice blue and— holy shit that's unfair— he _grins_. And actually his grin is the unfair part. Although without the sharpened I-teeth, she mentally crosses vampire off of her mental list of possible supernatural creatures.

"Aw c'mon, if Stevie was your boyfriend you'd want people to know, right?" he grins.

Natasha glances at Steve, just beginning to pinken in the cheeks.

"Fair," she says with a lingering gaze on the small blonde,

"This has been a terrible mistake," Steve grumbles, "I should have never introduced you two."

Bucky laughs, grinning at Steve, "Well… I work here now so I probably would have found out about your secret lunch place eventually."

Natasha almost groans out loud. The new employee is preternaturally gorgeous _and_ he has dimples which are _adorable_. Again, this is all extremely unfair to her, personally.

"Oh, so we'll be seeing more of you then…" Nat looks at him from under her lashes.

Steve turns to her, his frown already creeping into scowl territory. "I thought you and Clint were together?"

And over-protective Steve is pretty cute too, given he's about a third of the size of Bucky,

Natasha looks at Clint, who is absolutely still blue-screening, "I think we're on the same page here."

As Bucky and Steve leave, and Natasha gets a better look at Bucky’s back— wait, no… his back _side_ — she realizes she’s going to need to _fix_ Clint because there's no way this is a one-woman job.

* * *

Bucky comes in with Steve on most days.

For a few weeks, Nat gets some quality entertainment from scheduling her breaks around when the pair come in and watching Clint trip all over himself over a lemon scone and earl grey tea.

She'll never admit it's just as gratifying to watch him slowly turn into an incorrigible flirt.

It's a few months after that, that Bucky becomes a regular: his drinks appearing alongside Steve's before the pair arrive in the café. Or before they know they’re going to leave, even. With the advance warning of the pair coming to visit, Natasha and Clint start to argue over who gets to spend their break with the boys. Usually they’ve resolved it one way or another before Steve and Bucky arrive with Clint owing Natasha some long-neglected chore or Natasha promising to let Clint marathon Dog Cop over the weekend. 

Natasha perks up when the familiar black mug with a single red star appears on the regulars’ counter and begins filling on its own. Neither she nor Clint have been able to agree on a theory on how a regular’s mug is decided or delivered, but they did agree it was pretty cute that Bucky’s mug somewhat matched Steve’s blue and white-starred mug.

Clint pokes his head out from the kitchen for the fifth time during Steve and Bucky’s normal lunch hour and spots the mug instantly.

“Is it my turn?”

“We agreed that neither of us could keep track of turns.” Natasha sighs.

“Maybe we should’ve gotten like a chalkboard or something…” Clint muses.

“Too late now. I’ll drive us to work all next week.”

“You always drive anyway!” Clint pouts.

“Maybe I wouldn’t complain about how you’re never awake enough to drive us. What do you think this break is worth, then?”

“Dog Cop weekend?”

Natasha crosses her arms over her chest. “No way. You’ve watched all of Dog Cop at least three times in the last month. I will lose it.”

"You two are fighting?"

Bucky surprises them both. When they turn, his eyes are wide and darting between them like he's suddenly afraid of them. It sends an answering spike of fear through Natasha. She instantly never wants to be the cause of that look again.

"Neither of us has had our break yet." Natasha says at the same time Clint says, "Your order just showed up."

Nat and Clint glare at each other, realizing they'd just given their whole game up.

"Have dinner with me?"

Their eyes snap back to Bucky, shocked out of their staring blame game. Bucky is equally shocked if the bright flush covering most of his face is any indication. They stare at each other. Someone in line coughs.

"Which one of us?" they ask in unison again, each pointing at the other.

"Both?" Bucky squeaks, blush climbing up even further towards his hairline.

And here Nat thought, after all this time, that she'd run out of new things to find adorable about him. Apparently she’d been wrong.

"Yes." Clint says quickly.

Somewhere behind Bucky, Steve groans. "I can't believe you three."

* * *

Nat is starting to learn there are two versions of Bucky. The first is the grinning-gorgeous one who comes in with Steve on their shared lunch break.

The second is the broody-gorgeous and serious one who shows up with his coworkers, who seem rather broody and serious themselves. The first co-worker is of a similar complexion to Bucky except with the contrast slider maxed out. His hair is blacker and his skin paler, all topped off with cold green eyes and a resting bitch face Natasha would kill for. The second is easy-going and polite and, despite his ability to make it seem like he’s seeing right through her, always wearing dark sunglasses.

"Sometimes it gets too dark up in the archives. Even for Matt," Bucky tells them one day, nodding towards the one wearing the glasses, "So we come down here and talk about our problems in the light."

They both tip very well, though, so Natasha is inclined to like them.

* * *

"Who let a pretty thing like you out all alone?" Clint coos at an extra broody Bucky.

He waits a moment, and when the other man doesn’t respond, Clint slides into the empty seat across from him. It takes another few moments, then Bucky looks up from his tablet suddenly.

"Oh, Clint. When’d you get here?"

Clint sighs dramatically, "My wooing is lost on you."

Bucky blinks at him. "Sorry… I've just got a lot of… work going on in my head."

Clint hums, taking a muffin out of his pocket and pushing it towards Bucky. Clint grimaces when Bucky barely acknowledges his latest baked good obsession before mechanically consuming it. Clint signs Nat over, indicating a Bucky Emergency™. She arrives with a full tea service, complete with a multi-tiered silver platter for all the various finger sandwiches and tea cakes that sit above the tea pot and cups.

"Why do we have one of these?" Clint asks, picking up a tea sandwich.

She shrugs, “It was just there when I needed something that would carry food and drink. It looks a lot like my great aunt’s, though.”

"Hmmm," Clint says.

Nat isn't sure if that's meant to be more of a complete thought impeded by a sandwich, or just a general noise to convey he's thinking. He doesn't follow up though, so Natasha starts making tea for the three of them. The strong tea seems to wake Bucky up as he actually reaches for the food on his own the more tea he drinks.

"We've been losing books." he says once they’ve drained the pot.

Nat and Clint blink at him. Despite spending so much time around library staff, they're not privy to most of the inner workings of the large book collection.

"It shouldn't be possible," Bucky explains, "Not without some sort of… outside influence…"

"How do you know they're lost and not… missing or just stolen?" Nat asks.

Bucky flips the tablet around for them so they can see the reports of all the books in his section. Most of them are coded green with a shelf number. A few are yellow to show that someone— indicated by their library card number— is reading them currently. Then there are the handful that are flashing red. Their location is displayed as a series of rotating runes that look Dwarvish to Natasha but not quite.

"That doesn't look good."

"It's not. No one should be able to take those books out of the library without Loki's permission. He's been puzzling over the loan terms the past few days and hasn't been finding anything… we just keep coming in every morning and finding more books gone."

"Oooh!" Clint jumps up in his chair.

"No." Natasha says, not even looking away from the pot of tea she’s working on.

"You don't even know what I was going to say!"

Natasha looks at him sideways, but doesn't stop him from continuing.

"We should do a stakeout!"

"You've been watching too much Dog Cop." Natasha says.

"The books are all disappearing at night, Bucky just said so. We should stay in the library overnight and see who's doing it!"

"That's not a—"

"Let's do it." Bucky says, finally putting the tablet down.

Natasha sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, "I see what I've gotten myself into, now. Why didn't Steve warn me of this?"

"I'm absolutely sure he did," Bucky says gravely, but grinning.

* * *

Natasha grumbles the whole way, but still meets them on the 13th floor with two thermoses of coffee. One for Clint and one for her and Bucky to share through the rest of the night. Clint brings the leftovers that weren’t donated to the food bank at the end of the day, packed in paper sacks like he'd made them sack lunches. Natasha trades a look with Bucky behind his back to confirm they're both entirely enamored as Clint hands them each a brown paper bag with their names already written on it.

Bucky, it seems, has gathered all the cushions he could find and piled them all in a particularly dark and dusty corner of the collection. It shouldn’t be nearly as charming as it is to imagine him scouring the surrounding area for things to make the three of them more comfortable staying up in the library overnight.

"You made us a nest," Clint comments, voice sounding suspiciously waverly.

"What?" Bucky blinks at him.

Nat pushes Clint into the pillows before he can further incriminate himself.

"You work in a library, I'm sure you can figure it out," Nat says to Bucky's raised eyebrow at her.

Bucky frowns at them, but can't continue looming over Nat and Clint, so he flops down with them, _accidentally_ jostling them so their limbs tangle and overlap.

"Sooo how are we supposed to know when one of your books gets snatched?" Clint asks.

"This was _your_ idea!" Nat growls at him, "Did Dog Cop teach you nothing about stakeouts?!"

"It taught me to bring snacks!" Clint holds up his own bag as a shield between him and his partner.

"Well first, I think we're supposed to be quiet," Bucky cuts in before they get carried away, "Second, I brought my tablet so we should get an alert when a book starts moving."

"So we're just going to stare at your tablet all night? Gonna be honest, Barnes, that's not what I had in mind for our first date."

Bucky sputters. Natasha suspects if there was a bit more light, she’d have the pleasure of watching him flush red right now.

She grins to herself.

"That's not— I mean this isn't… I had _plans_!"

"I dunno. Stakeouts seem pretty romantic." Clint says, winding his foot around Bucky’s ankle and leaning more into Natasha’s side.

"I'm withholding judgement until later but points for creativity," Nat says, "But you still owe us dinner."

* * *

They trade snacks from each others' bags until they're buzzing from too much sugar eaten too late.

Clint might _actually_ be vibrating from the effort to keep quiet. Nat and Bucky trade fond grins at Clint's obvious distress. He glowers when he catches them trading glances behind his back and wedges himself between them. Except that just forces them to pass their shared thermos over Clint, grinning as he pouts over having none of his own coffee left.

They're so comfortable sitting pressed shoulder to shoulder in the dusty dark that they almost miss the insistent blinking from Bucky's tablet. Clint is the first to notice and lurches forward to get a better look, knocking Bucky and Natasha out of the pile of cushions along with him. Bucky grabs the tablet and takes off into the stacks. Clint and Natasha follow as closely as possible with only the library’s emergency lighting to help them find their way. When they catch up to him, he's crouched behind a shelf, peering through the gap between the books. Nat and Clint slot in on either side of Bucky, pressing their faces close enough to feel the long stubble on his cheeks as they all peer through the same gap.

Bucky's eyes are fixed forwards, however. Nat and Clint hold their breath. A shuffling catches their attention. On the other side of the shelves, there's a small creature hanging off a book half-pulled from the shelf. It gives a grunt and a kick and falls off the shelf, still clutching the book. The book lands with a loud crack, making the three of them jump. Clint gets part of a whispered curse out before Nat and Bucky clap their hands over his mouth. When they look back, the creature is dusting itself off and looking around. It reaches under the large book and fishes out a conical, dark-colored hat. The creature then picks up a corner of the book, dragging it towards a beam of moonlight. The creature steps into the moonlight. Its hat is red. Its beard is white and covering most of its body. Another shuffling step into— through— the moonlight and both the creature and the book are gone.

Bucky swears long and loud, falling back and into the shelf behind them. He runs his hand through his hair, disrupting the half bun there. And, again, Natasha is forced to confront that he is way too attractive for any of their own goods.

* * *

"Library gnomes. We have f$@king library gnomes." Bucky declares as soon as Loki walks through the front doors.

"Library gnomes," Loki drawls, his raised eyebrow raising a bit further as he takes in the three of them, still wearing their pajamas after spending all night in the library.

It's hard for Natasha to tell if Loki is inclined to believe them because, as she’s learned recently, Loki drawls _everything_. She's also… not at her best this morning. Their stakeout finished around 6AM, well after when she and Clint would have normally arrived to open the café. So it’s a good thing they had already convinced Kate and Cassie to open for them, but any fantasies of Bucky driving them home and staying the night and…

She blinks hard. Her brain has been wandering off to its thirstier corners all morning. Apparently without sleep, she has a real one track mind. Or maybe it was spending a good portion of the night sandwiched between Clint and Bucky.

Clint appears next to her with yet another pot of coffee. She holds out her mug and Clint pauses sipping from the pot to give her a refill. They both perk up when Bucky turns away from Loki finally and walks towards them.

"He's going to set up some gnome wards. Although, I still can’t tell if he was just humoring me or thought I’d completely lost it."

There's a pause. Natasha starts laughing, doubled over and gasping for breath already. Clint is trying to reassure the patrons but doesn't realize that brandishing a coffee pot isn't helping his cause at all. Which sets Bucky off, laughter bubbling out of him until he's doubled over and leaning against Clint for support.

It takes several rounds of one of them calming down and then the other one setting them off again before they finally manage to stop laughing long enough to really catch their breath.

"Oookay… I hate to be the adult here but Kate is glaring daggers at me and I think if we don’t get out soon she’s going to kill one of us. Probably me."

Clint is blinking down at them and maybe he has a point because Natasha didn't recall sliding down to the floor, holding onto Bucky the whole time,

"Oh. Right. Loki actually sent me home for the day," Bucky says, blinking somewhat owlishly, "He's technically not my boss but I guess I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth."

Clint pulls them both up off the ground.

"I, uh, know I owe you dinner, but maybe we could start with lunch? No wait is it still breakfast?" Bucky's face twists in confusion, visibly trying to work out what order meals come in.

Natasha breaks once again, dissolving into giggles. Clint groans in frustration. He grabs Bucky in order to kiss his extremely adorable confused face until both of them have gone slack-jawed and glazy-eyed. Neither of them let go of her hand, though. If anything, Bucky holds onto her even tighter. When they part for air, Clint nudges Bucky towards Natasha. She's still not quite over her giggling fit when Bucky kisses her, soft and earnest and by the end they're all grinning at each other, anyway.


End file.
